Rev. Ralph Wiltgen: The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber: A History of Vatican II

[Stone]

THE SECOND SESSION
September 29 to December 4, 1963

ADOPTION OF THE SCHEMA ON THE LITURGY AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION

Bishop Zauner of Linz, Austria, was the best-known expert on liturgy among the Council Fathers. As a member of the Commission on the Sacred Liturgy, he was the logical choice to report to the Fulda conference in August, 1963, on the progress made by that commission.

The goal which the Liturgical Commission had always borne in mind during its discussion of the amendments proposed by Council Fathers, he said, was to produce a text which would be assured of gaining the support of two thirds of the Council assembly. For that reason. Bishop Zauner explained, many desirable points had been omitted. One such point was “the use of the vernacular in the breviary for a large part of the clergy in certain territories.” He pointed out, however, that all “important issues that could be considered necessary for liturgical progress” had been accepted, and that the schema as drawn up by the Commission consequently deserved the support of all.

Bishop Zauner was disappointed with Article 57, which laid down the rules concerning concelebration. He explained that the numerous occasions for concelebration listed in an earlier draft, and which had been deleted by the subcommission on amendments during the preparatory stage of the Council, had not been restored. That was of little consequence, however, since “the opportunity for concelebration is practically extended to every group of priests.”

He explained that in its meetings the Commission had run into special difficulties regarding the language to be used when sacred rites were solemnized in song. There were some members who claimed that genuine Gregorian chant must necessarily be sung in Latin, whereas others maintained that this was not true. After lengthy discussion the commission decided to sidestep the issue, giving not even an implicit decision in the matter, so that—as the official commentary later said— “neither the true nature of the art of Gregorian chant may be disfigured, nor pastoral care may in any way be impeded.” By referring in Article 113 of Chapter 6 to the general norms already listed elsewhere in the text, the Commission and subsequently the Council left bishops free to use either Latin or the vernacular when sacred rites were solemnized in song.

Bishop Zauner’s hope that the Council Fathers would endorse the revised text was amply fulfilled at the second session. With approximately 2200 Council Fathers voting, only 36 votes were cast against Chapter 2; 30 against Chapter 3; 43 against Chapter 4; and 21 against the combined Chapters 5, 6, and 7. The vote on the schema as a whole was 2159 to 19; it took place in the morning of Friday, November 22,1963, the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of the document, Tra le sollecitudini, issued by Pope St. Pius X, which had launched the whole liturgical movement.

In an interview following the vote, Bishop Zauner told me that four important aims or principles were reflected in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. “The first is that divine worship must be a community action; that is, that the priest should do everything with the active participation of the people, and never alone.” The use of the vernacular, he said, was a necessary condition for such participation.

A second principle was that the faithful must be enriched by Sacred Scripture directly, and not only through sermons. “Every liturgical function, including the marriage rite, will now include readings from Sacred Scripture.”

A third principle was that, through liturgical worship, the people should not only pray but also learn. This was especially important, the Bishop said, in mission territories, where the priest could make only infrequent visits to his parishes. It was also necessary in countries suffering persecution, where religious instruction outside Mass was often forbidden. Even in free societies, the same need arose; the pace at which life moved was so rapid that if the faithful did not receive instruction at Mass, they often had no time for it at all.

The fourth principle applied specifically to mission territories. “Where there are tribal customs involving no superstitious elements, these may now be introduced in the liturgy,” said Bishop Zauner. This process, known as adaptation, “may be carried out only by the authority of an episcopal conference assisted by experts from the linguistic areas con¬ cerned. Approval by the Holy See is required before such adaptation may be put into effect.”

The Bishop said that he was “very well satisfied” with the Constitution on the Liturgy, and had never believed that “we would achieve so much.”

The final, formal vote took place on December 4, the closing day of the second session, in the presence of Pope Paul VI. In his address, the Pope pointed out that the first schema to be discussed by the Council had been the one on the sacred liturgy; and the subject was also, “in a certain sense, the first in order of intrinsic excellence and importance for the life of the Church.” The new Constitution on the Liturgy, he said, would simplify liturgical rites, make them more understandable to people, and accommodate the language used to that spoken by the people concerned. There was no question of impoverishing the liturgy, the Pope said; “on the contrary, we wish to render the liturgy more pure, more genuine, more in agreement with the Source of truth and grace, more suited to be transformed into a spiritual patrimony of the people.”

Ballots had meanwhile been distributed, and the Council Fathers were asked to vote for or against the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. The results were speedily processed by electronic computer and announced: 2147 votes in favor, 4 against. The announcement was greeted with an outburst of applause.

Pope Paul then rose and solemnly promulgated the Constitution, using a formula different from the one used at the First Vatican Council. Here, greater emphasis was placed on the role of the bishops: “In the Name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The decrees which have now been read in this sacred and universal Second Vatican Council, lawfully assembled, have pleased the Council Fathers. And we, by the Apostolic power given to us by Christ, together with the Venerable Fathers, do approve, enact, and establish these decrees in the Holy Spirit, and command that what has been thus established in the Council be promulgated unto the glory of God.” Once more, applause filled the hall.

Some, like Bishop Zauner, had believed that the Holy Father would put the Constitution on the Liturgy into effect immediately. Instead, it was announced that there would be a vacatio legis, or suspension of the law, until February 16, 1964, the first Sunday of Lent. In the interval, the Pope was to announce the manner in which the specific provisions of the Constitution were to be put into effect. This suspension of the law made it possible for bishops to instruct the priests and laity of their dioceses on the coming changes.

On January 29, 1964, L’Osservatore Romano published Pope Paul’s Motu proprio, or directives, in the matter. In substance the Pope said that not all parts of the Constitution on the Liturgy could be put into effect at once, since new liturgical books must be prepared, and he announced that a special commission would be appointed to undertake this task.

On the following day, L'Osservatore Romano published a commentary by a Benedictine liturgist, Father Salvatore Marsili, expressing considerable disappointment with the Motu proprio, which, “while ostensibly ending the period of suspension of the Constitution, in practice lengthens it.”

I had the good fortune to meet Father Marsili shortly thereafter, and learned that, in his eyes, the Motu proprio was a “disaster.” The Constitution on the Liturgy, he said, had been so open, so expansive, “and now the Pope has closed it up again with his Motu proprio.” Everyone on the Liturgical Commission was aware, he said, that three separate versions of the document had been prepared for the Pope. The one which eventually reached him had been so thoroughly altered by Archbishop Felici that in part it even contradicted the Constitution as promulgated. Unfortunately, Pope Paul, relying on the Secretary General, had permitted publication of the text.

In the twenty-four-hour period following the publication of the Motu proprio, there was pandemonium in the offices of the Vatican Secretariat of State. Telephone calls, telegrams, and cablegrams poured in from perplexed and angry bishops and episcopal conferences all over the world. Archbishop Angelo Dell’Acqua of the Secretariat of State later said that this department had never witnessed such a day in its entire history. The position was further aggravated on January 31, when L’Osservatore Romano published an Italian translation of the Moto proprio which did not tally with the Latin text published two days before.

Perhaps the major grievance against the Motu proprio was its failure to permit the introduction of the vernacular in the liturgy after February 16, 1964. It was soon reported in the press that the French hierarchy were going ahead with the vernacular regardless. The German hierarchy immediately sent one of their leading liturgists, Monsignor Johannes Wagner, to Rome, to see what had gone wrong. Cardinal Lercaro, of Bologna, was greatly displeased, and he announced that he was coming to Rome to see the Pope.

The jurists at the Vatican were busy, meanwhile, seeking a way out of the dilemma. The solution they found was to inform the episcopal conferences around the world, through the Apostolic nuncios or delegates, that the Motu proprio that had appeared in L’Osservatore Romano had been revoked, and that another version was in preparation for publication in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, the only official journal of the Holy See. (Technically no Vatican document is ever officially promulgated until it appears in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.)

On March 2, the official text of the Motu proprio as it was to appear in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis was issued as a brochure for distribution to bishops. Fifteen revisions had been made. To many Council Fathers, those few sheets of paper were a symbol of their victory over the Roman Curia.

On March 5, L’Osservatore Romano announced the establishment of a Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, as promised by Pope Paul in his Motu proprio. The new commission had a membership of forty-two persons, representing twenty-six countries, with Cardinal Lercaro as President. On this commission were most of the Council Fathers who had been members of the Liturgical Commission, as well as many others; its Secretary was Father Annibale Bugnini, C.M., who had acted in the same capacity on the preparatory commission on the liturgy.

The most surprising name of all on this commission was that of Archbishop Felici, who had so thoroughly blue-penciled the Motu proprio and caused such commotion among the bishops and such embarrassment for the Holy Father. What had he done to merit a seat on this commission? He was a canon lawyer, but not a liturgist. The appointment had been promoted by Father Bugnini, who felt that the Archbishop deserved to be rewarded for what he had done in behalf of the schema in its early stages, when eighty-year-old Gaetano Cardinal Cicognani, older brother of the Secretary of State and President of the Liturgical Preparatory Commission, had hesitated in giving the necessary approval.

Strong conservative elements in the Sacred Congregation of Rites were urging him to withhold his signature. Archbishop Felici, who reported regularly on the progress of the schemas and their distribution to Pope John, explained the difficulty that he was having with Cardinal Cicognani, since without his signature the schema was blocked, even though the required majority of the commission had already approved it. Before the audience was over, a plan was devised to obtain the desired signature.

Pope John called for his Secretary of State and told him to visit his brother and not to return until the schema was duly signed. On February 1, 1962, he went to his brother’s office, found Archbishop Felici and Father Bugnini in the corridor nearby, and informed his brother of Pope John’s wish. Later a peritus of the Liturgical Preparatory Commission stated that the old Cardinal was almost in tears as he waved the document in the air and said, “They want me to sign this, but I don’t know if I want to.” Then he laid the document on his desk, picked up a pen, and signed it. Four days later he died.